Flying Time

Time always gets the best of us it seems. I´ll have to do a quick summary to get things caught up.

After hitchhiking our way to Merida in the northwest of the Yucatan peninsula and spending the night under the semitruck, we caught a ride to the beach Progresso. Here is where they say the Gulf of Mexico meets the Carribean Sea. After two days on the beach the six of us hit the highway again. This time, as we were walking to where we were about to try hitching a ride, without even sticking out a thumb a car pulled over and offered us a lift. The man and his girlfriend insisted on fitting the six of us in to the four remaining seats along with our six large backpacks, two drums and one guittar. Somehow, it worked. We arrived two hours later in Valladolid where the nice couple bought us all lunch before sending us on our way.

Since Valladolid is a short distance from all the beaches of the Carribean, but not too expensive, we decided to rent a house for the six of us for a half a month. We found a cheap place with three rooms and a small bathroom - completely empty of any type of chair or bed, or anything at all - but it was home. From Valladolid we were able to leave all of our heavy bags and hitchhike easily on the weekends. We went to Cancun, Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum. As well as one of the seven wonders of the world - the ruins of Chichin Itza. From Valladolid our crew split up. Eleise had left for Australia, and Lisa had left for Germany. Cesar and Angel found jobs in Playa del Carmen. Arturo and I had gotten together and decided to go to Tulum again for a few days and from there to Mahahual in the south.

In Tulum there is a huge natural reserve called XianKan. It´s 50 km of jungle lining white sand beaches and clear turquoise water. To enter there is one dirt road where now and then tourist passes during the day. We decided to spend a few days in the jungle and packing a lot of water headed down the road hoping for a car to pass and give us a ride. Soon enough a nice car driven by a very nice Norwegian couple stopped to give the scraggly travelers a ride. After an hour of chatting they dropped us off deep into the reserve with their best wishes and fifty dollars. After a few days of fighting mosquitos and enjoying the silence we hitched our way to Mahahual a few hours south. A friend of mine that I met in Palanque owns a restaurant there and let us pitch our tent out back. Mahahual was incredibly relaxing and beautiful. It was great to hang out with some good company and work on a bit of jewelry before heading off again.

From Mahahual we caught a ride with a dad and his five kids in their big van all the way to Palanque, at least ten hours away. We sang songs with the kids, they invited us to dinner and bought several pieces of jewelry from us. They left us in Palanque with their telephone and address if we ever made it up to their neck of the woods. From Palanque we made our way through San Cristobal again, and then headed into Guatamala.

We crossed the border illegally and easily to avoid problems since Arturo didn´t have a passport. From the border we got on a ´chicken bus´to Lake Atitlan and found a cheap place to stay in Panahachel. We stayed for a few days then headed to a less touristic town on the other side of the lake called San Pedro. We found a small hotel that charged us one dollar per night! The food in Guatamala is great, the lake is beautiful, we were able to sell really well, and with such a cheap place to stay... what´s not to love? We stayed for a couple weeks there before heading to Antigua to visit. Antigua is a nice colonial city, however, not so cheap and they don´t let artisans sell in the streets. So needless to say, we couldn´t stay long. We had planned on heading to Honduras in the south, but when we got to the border it wasn't quite as easy to cross without a passport and Arturo got sent back to Mexico. So we passed quickly through Guatamala the way we had come and back to San Cristobal. Again.